Swimming
by GirlDressedInBlack
Summary: Sometimes when she hasn't seen them for ages she begins to sink. In those times she searches for them desperately, knowing that their voice is the only thing that can save her. Doctor/Master. Nineteenth oneshot of the Florence Collection


That cold feeling sweeps over her strangely, brushing at her ankles one moment and a jagged storm drowning her in salt and ripping through her chest in a way which makes her vision cut out the next.

It cools her feet at first, slows her down enough to consider, once or twice, letting a few people live as it laps around her feet.

It's fine when it's like that, when it doesn't hurt.

But then from nowhere it is raging, consuming her as she drinks it down too. She can't help but swallow down the fear, the paranoia, the pain, the retribution of those she's hurt.

Tit for tat.

An eye for an eye.

Scars for scarred hearts.

And she can't run- not like this- not when she's struggling to stay afloat, a sea of panic choking her because what if this time it's them coming to spoil her plans, not someone who will actually hurt her.

She can't leave.

She can't leave!

So she flails, needing them, needing them, needing them but they never come and so she suffocates on suffering, inflicting or inflicted- it depends how lucky she is, she quick she is, how fast she can think despite the crushing nature that it's not them, it's not them, it's not them, it's never them.

Would it ever be them?

It gets darker and darker as she tries to run, mind ice as thoughts slip over it and water fills her completely, leaves her far, far too full of far, far too much.

Eyes search through murky water as she lies heaving somewhere which doesn't matter, something sharp beneath her palms as she clenches her fists, digs them in- doesn't matter.

She thinks distantly that she might be crying.

She thinks back that maybe she's just submerged.

She can't find it now- hope- as her memory slips and skitters over what should be an ocean of thoughts but is only a whirlpool now, sucking her down, deeper, down.

She needs them so much it feels like her hearts are frozen stones in her chest, bitter ice gnawing at her from the inside out.

Somehow she finds the energy to move even though it feels like her body is walking without her, carrying her corpse of a mind to the first place she finds alcohol and sometimes pity as she drinks.

The burning doesn't do anything to dispel the sea, around and inside her, crushing her in its depths.

She catches distorted reflection of their faces in her mind but they just hurt her now, like slivers of glass, not yet smoothed by the turmoil as she clutches at them, tries to find proof that they had existed, had been there once.

And then- in what feels like the next moment- she can feel arms around her and she just knows that it's them this time- she just does. And their voice is soft as they take her weight and hold her close, tucked into the side of their neck, safe again, the sea around her slipping away, calming with their presence as she wraps her arms around them too, taking a deep breath which tastes like freshwater, cool and sweet as she buries herself in them.

Warmth starts to come back into her again, her hearts melting as she just breathes in and out, tension leaving as she opens her eyes to see what she can of them, arms tightening to keep them there, to anchor them both here, safe.

"You didn't have to send me this, Missy. A call would have done." They say, voice soft and warm and low and more comforting than any sound has the right to be as they tap a disc lightly against the Time Lady's back, one which undoubtedly belongs to her though she can't remember having sent it.

And then she hears a noise, one so strange she can't place it until she realises that she's laughing and crying at the same time, fingers clutching at the Doctor's clothes as she grins against their skin, feeling like she's floating in the air, buoyant, no- swimming- in her feelings for them.

She doesn't tell them not to leave but they don't need to be asked to stay.


End file.
